THIS VOLUME
reproduces in full the 22-page
Morgenthau Plan for the first time. [Not
yet reproduced on this site. This is just the
editor's Introduction].

It also prints a selection of key British and
American documents relating to the plan, although
the story is still incomplete: many parts of the
British foreign office files relating to it are
still closed to public inspection, an exception to
the general thirty-year rule.

The Morgenthau Plan, more formally known as the
Treasury Plan for the Treatment of Germany, was
devised by Assistant Treasury Secretary Harry
Dexter White and Secretary Henry R. Morgenthau Jr.
in the summer of 1944. Morgenthau had just visited
the battlefields of Normandy and spoken with
General Dwight D Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied
Commander, then arrived in Britain for talks with
Mr Winston Churchill, the British prime minister
and his advisers.

While important elements of the Plan, including
the subtle re-education of the Germans by their own
refugees and the dismantling of German heavy

industry to aid British exports, were indeed put
into effect, in the directive 1067 which the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff finally issued to Eisenhower,
the main parts of the Morgenthau Plan, including
orders to liquidate entire classes of suspected
Nazi war criminals upon simple identification, and
to leave the German nation to 'stew in its own
juice,' were not formally implemented.

The Morgenthau Plan would have led to the death
by starvation and pestilence of ten million Germans
in the first two years after the war, in addition
to the one million who had been killed in the
saturation bombing and the three million killed in
the enforced expulsion from Germany's eastern
territories.

The Plan, enthusiastically adopted by
German-born Lord Cherwell (Professor Friedrich A.
Lindemann, Churchill's close friend, economic,
strategic and scientific adviser), was pushed
through at the Quebec summit conference between
Roosevelt and Churchill on September 15, 1944.

It was part of the price that Churchill and
Cherwell were willing to pay for a broad package of
American concessions over which Morgenthau had
political control including further Lend-lease aid
(Phase II) to the British Empire after the war;
moreover Mr Churchill needed his support on
military issues including joint British strategic
control of the atomic bomb (the Hyde Park agreement
which was signed on September 18, 1944) and
Britain's participation in the war in the Pacific.
We can only speculate about Harry Dexter White's
purpose in canvassing a plan which would have
ruined the largest country in Central Europe, the
last bastion that would protect Western Europe from
the Red Army in post-war years.

The memorandum endorsing the plan's objectives
was initialled (Okayed) by F.D.R. and W.C. on
September 15, 1944.

The Plan caused immediate
controversy. Hearing that it had been initialled at
Quebec, Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War
(Kriegsminister), made bitter comments about the
Semites in his unpublished private diary. Anthony
Eden, British foreign secretary (1940-1945).and
later prime minister, dismissed Morgenthau's and
Lord Cherwell's lobbying, in a hitherto unpublished
document, as a piece of gratuitous impertinence:
'These ex-Germans,' wrote Eden, 'seem to wish to
wash away their ancestry in a bath of hate. A.E.
Nov 19.'

When details of the Morgenthau Plan leaked to
the press in America, angry British politicians
demanded to know if Churchill had indeed signed
such a document.

In 1953, after the F.B.I. levelled Soviet spy
charges against the plan's co-author, Herry Dexter
White, Sir Winston Churchill sent to Lord Cherwell
a letter behind which was all the anxiety and guilt
of a great man who realizes he has been duped.

* * * * *

Much still remains to be revealed about the
Morgenthau Plan. Dr Joseph Goebbels, Nazi
propaganda minister, made enough capital from it to
inflict tens of thousands of extra casualties on
British and American troops in the battles that
followed its publication, and in the autumn 1944
U.S. presidential election campaign Roosevelt's
opponent Thomas Dewey lost no time in pointing this
out. 'The publishing of this Plan,' claimed Dewey,
'was as good as ten fresh German divisions.'

Coming under increasing fire, Morgenthau wrote
around his fellow ministers, appealing for support.
Telephoning Henry Stimson on November 4, 1944, to
'urge him to do something,' he found the
Kriegsminister too busy cooking the official
records to cleanse Roosevelt of any implication in
quite another scandal. 'He sounded more tired than
ever. Said he was tired out from working the last
two weeks on Pearl Harbor report to keep out
anything that might hurt the Pres.'

Clever forgeries, prettying-up of official files
after the event: this is why historians who rely
only on printed volumes are likely to be misled.
For this reason, it is important that my full
dossier on the infamous Morgenthau Plan should be
published in facsimile, to enable future
generations of Germans to distinguish between the
fantasies of Nazi propagan- dists and the total
truth of 1944-1945. David Irving, London, June
1985

THE PEOPLE INVOLVED

CHERWELL,(1886-1957)faddish, teetotal personal
adviser to Churchill from 1940; Paymaster General
1943-45, 1951-53. Had a knack of putting
complicated matters in terms intelligible to
Winston. When Cherwell became Paymaster General on
December 31, 1942 Oliver Harvey aptly summed him
up: 'He is a somewhat sinister figure who under the
guise of scientific adviser puts up a lot of
reactionary stuff.' Henry Stimson, asked if he knew
the Prof, acidly replied: 'I'm not sure whether
that means the Professor or the Prophet. We in the
War Department know him only as an old fool who
loudly proclaimed that we could never cross the
Channel and also that when the robots
[V-weapons] came they could never do any
damage!'

In Admiral Leahy's personal file on 'White,
Harry D.' is a document entitled, 'Publicity in
regard to Harry D. White, one time Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury,' November 1953.
According to this the Attorney General had
announced that on February 20, 1946 the F.B.I. gave
to White House officials including Leahy a report
of White's association with Soviet agents.

Leahy noted, 'I have no recollection of having
seen or heard of such a report at any time.' His
only contact with White, in connection with
Britain's request for Lend Lease, had been at a
meeting on November 18, 1944.

THE BITTER ATMOSPHERE

In June and July 1944, Roosevelt and other
leading Americans had begun dropping remarks about
their plans for Germany and the Germans. On June 7,
entertaining the Polish prime minister Mikolajczyk
at the White House, Roosevelt had related with
round eyes remarks made by Stalin about his plans
to 'liquidate 50,000 German officers.' In fact when
Churchill tried to persuade Stalin to adopt such a
plan, to his annoyance Stalin insisted on fair and
proper trials in every case.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower had similar views.
He told British ambassador Lord Halifax on July 10,
1944, that he felt the enemy leaders should be
'shot while trying to escape.' Imprisonment was not
enough for the 3,500 officers of the German general
staff. Lieutenant-Commander Harry C. Butcher,
Eisenhower's naval aide, noted in a secret diary:
'There was agreement that extermination could be
left to nature if the Russians had a free hand.'
Why just the Russians?, inquired Eisenhowerthey
could temporarily assign zones in Germany to the
smaller nations with old scores to settle.

Stimson felt that it would be wise to allow the
British to occupy Northern Germany, because that
was where much liquidation would be effected. 'I
felt,' recorded the Republican Kriegsminister
obliquely in his diary, 'that repercussions would
be sure to arise which would mar the page of our
history if we, whether rightly or wrongly, seemed
to be responsible.' If the Americans occupied
southern Germany, it would keep them away from
Russia during the occupation period: 'Let her do
the dirty work,' he suggested to the President,
'but don't father it.'

After a discussion with General George C
Marshall on the punishment of Hitler, the Gestapo
and the S.S., Stimson wrote in his diary, 'I found
around me, particularly Morgenthau, a very bitter
atmosphere of personal resentment against the
entire German people without regard to individual
guilt. of the Nazis.'

MORGENTHAU VISITS EUROPE

In July 1944 General George C. Marshall had
informed Eisenhower that Henry R. Morgenthau Jr.,
Secretary of the Treasury, and a party of experts
were planning a trip to investigate currency
problems in France. Eisenhower replied that there
was nothing to be learned in the little strip of
land which his armies then controlled'which is
divided about equally between fighting fronts and a
solid line of depots, with two main lateral roads
completely filled with double columns of motor
transport.'

Privately he added that these VIP trips were a
pain in the neck. There just was not the space for
visitors: Bradley's only accommodation consisted of
one trailer and a couple of Jeeps, while Montgomery
'usually simply refuses to see unwelcome visitors.'
He could hardly have made himself plainer. But
Morgenthau had Roosevelt's ear, so Eisenhower had
no choice but to humor him.

On the transatlantic flight Morgenthau's chief
assistant Harry Dexter White slipped to him a copy
of the report by the Washington interdepartmental
Foreign Economic Policy Committee on postwar policy
toward Germany. It shocked Morgenthau. As drafted,
it would leave Germany more powerful in five or ten
years than she had been before the war. Colonel
Bernard Bernstein, financial adviser (G-5) at
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces
(SHAEF), took Eisenhower's special train to meet
Morgenthau's party in Scotland.

Morgenthau's son was also there when Morgenthau
stepped off the C-54 at Prestwick, Scotland, on
August 6 -- Eisenhower's chief of staff Bedell
Smith had secured a comfortable army appointment
for him. (There was to be 'no mention whatsoever,
at any time, about his son nor photographs
including his son,' Morgenthau's aide had
stipulated.

On the long train journey down to London,
Bernstein expressed concern to White and Morgenthau
about SHAEF's proposed handbook for American
officers in the future military government of
Germany: it was too soft, he said; little was being
done to make Germany suffer. On the contrary,
SHAEF's experts seemed to be preparing for
Germany's smooth return to the family of nations.
Army directives were being prepared to occupy,
'take over and control' Civil Affairs in Germany.
Evidently, said Bernstein, the Allies were to
assume responsibility for Germany's welfare, and
'even [sic] ensure that the Germans
received medical care and treatment.'

MORGENTHAU MEETS EISENHOWER

They could not have picked a worse day for their
visitHitler's counterattack against Patton and
Bradley began during the night. They lunched on
August 7 at Ike's Portsmouth command post.
According to Morgenthau's version, General
Eisenhower also strongly opposed any soft line on
Germany: 'The whole German population is a
synthetic paranoid,' he told the Treasury
Secretary. 'And there is no reason for treating a
paranoid gently. The best cure is to let the
Germans stew in their own juice.'

Ike's female assistant Kay Summersby
eavesdropped and wrote in her diary afterwards:
'Secretary Morgenthau and party for lunch. Quite
concerned about post war policies in Germany and
particularly anxious that we do not establish rates
of exchange that might favour Germany.' (Morgenthau
was proposing to inflict a punitive rate of
exchange on Germany, which would bankrupt her for
all time, rendering her unable to rise again and
make another war.)

This prompted the Supreme Commander to enlarge
on his own views about the enemy, which he himself
later quoted as follows: 'The German people must
not be allowed to escape a personal sense of
guilt.. Germany's war-making power should be
eliminated.. Certain groups should be specifically
punished.. The German General Staff should be
utterly eliminated. All records destroyed and
individuals scattered and rendered powerless to
operate as body.'

It was, claimed Morgenthau, Eisenhower who
instilled in him the idea of a harsh treatment of
the Germans. Eisenhower would later deny this, or
plead loss of memory, but reporting this to his own
staff on August 12, Morgenthau said: 'General
Eisenhower had stated, and given the Secretary
permission to repeat to others, that in his view we
must take a tough line with Germany as we must see
to it that Germany was never again in a position to
unleash war upon the world.' He added, 'The Prime
Minister had indicated his general concurrence with
General Eisenhower's viewpoint.' And on August 19
he would tell President Roosevelt that Eisenhower
'is perfectly prepared to be tough with the Germans
when he first goes in.' Morgenthau said that he had
told the general, 'All the plans in G-5 are
contrary to that view.'

THE MEETING WITH CHURCHILL

On August 10, Churchill's diary showed a lunch
appointment with Henry Morgenthau.

Churchill had longer-term worries than the
future of Germany. He had at last woken up to the
long term cost of the war to the Empire. Britain's
indebtedness would soon be $3,000m; her exports
were less than one-third of their 1938 level; to
maintain full employment she must increase exports
fivefold. So she must start rebuilding her export
trade now which Americans might not understand. But
Britain must release labor to rebuild her export
industries. So Lend-Lease must continue even after
Hitler's defeat, though a reduction of about
twenty-seven percent would appear reasonable to the
British. (, discussion FDR/WSC, September 14, in
Morgenthau diary and copy in General Hap H. Arnold
diary; and. W. D. Taylor, memo on meeting of Sir
John Anderson and Sir David Waley with Morgenthau,
Harry Dexter White, August 11.)

Over lunch on August 10, they sized each other
up. Churchill knew that Morgenthau was no friend of
Britain. Morgenthau flattered Roosevelt a few days
later that it was interesting 'how popular he
[Roosevelt] was with the soldiers and how
unpopular Churchill was.' He described one instance
to Roosevelt: 'I told him [Roosevelt],' he
wrote in his diary, 'about the difficulty of
finding someone to take me through the shelters
[in the East End of London] because both
Churchill and Sir Robert Morris [?Home
Secretary Mr Herbert Morrison] had been jeered
when they went through them recently, and that
finally they decided on Mrs Churchill and Lady
Mountbatten.' Morgenthau amused Roosevelt's Cabinet
a week later with a description of how the prime
minister 'kept referring to his age during
conversations.'

At the meeting between Churchill and Morgenthau
the small-talk was as frigid as only an interview
between a penniless debtor and his banker can be.
'Churchill,' described Morgenthau to Roosevelt, '..
started the conversation by saying that England was
broke.. Churchill's attitude was that he was broke
but not depressed about England's future.. He is
going to tell Parliament about their financial
condition at the right time after the Armistice,
and that when he does that he is through.'

Churchill said that he had heard that Morgenthau
was unfriendly towards Britain.

Morgenthau denied this, was brutally frank.
Churchill must put his cards on the table. He must
appoint a committee to consider financial
questions, and then tell Parliament the facts.

When told of this, Churchill quailed at the
idea. Roosevelt retorted, 'Oh, he is taking those
tactics now. More recently his attitude was that he
wanted to see England through the peace.'

Still, the revelation that Churchill had
bankrupted Britain startled him. 'I had no idea,'
he told Morgenthau. 'This is very interesting,' he
sneered. 'I had no idea that England was broke. I
will go over there and make a couple of talks and
take over the British Empire.'

Morgenthau gave a similar version of their
conversation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
'The Prime Minister stated,' he told Anderson on
August 11, 'that he did not wish to bring this
matter into the open while our combined war effort
in Europe was at its height.' Churchill was
prepared to speak to Parliament about the
straitened financial outlook, but not just yet.
Morgenthau's view was that, under the
circumstances, Churchill ought to take it up
directly with the President.

Reporting to Roosevelt a few days later
Morgenthau said, 'In England you can see the thing
much clearer. There are two kinds of people there:
One like Eden who believes we must cooperate with
Russia, and that we must trust Russia for the peace
of the world,'at which point FDR said he belonged
to the same school as Eden' -- and there is the
other school which is illustrated by the remark of
Mr Churchill who said, "What are we going to have
between the white snows of Russia and the white
cliffs of Dover?"'

Churchill was beginning to hint at the need for
a strong postwar Germany, and Morgenthau did not
like the sound of that at all. Roosevelt replied
that he hoped to see Churchill soon, even though
the Prime Minister was 'not his own master in some
important matters, being overridden frequently by
the Foreign Office.' (Memo Robert A. Lovett to
Stimson, Aug 18, 1944: Stimson papers.)

One other topic was discussed at No.10 Downing
Street. Morgenthau shortly told Zionist leaders
that the Prime Minister had assured him that, as
was well known, his sympathy was still for Zionism
and Zionist aspirations: that 'it was simply a
matter of timing as to when he would give the Jews
their State in Palestine.'*

MORGENTHAU'S OTHER MEETINGS IN ENGLAND

Turning his back on the unpleasant truth of
Britain's bankruptcy, Mr Churchill had literally
flowntaking off late on August 10 to tour British
headquarters in the Mediterranean.

Remaining in England, on August 12 and 13
Morgenthau tried to analyse Churchill's political
attitude with U.S. Ambassador John G. Winant and
Anthony Eden. In England, he again said, he saw
several groups: a pro-Soviet group around Eden,
favoring harsh treatment of Germany, including
dismemberment. A second, dangerous group favoured
Germany's economic restoration as a bulwark against
the Soviet Union; and a third group, mid-way,
preferring a strong Europe as a whole, aligned with
Britain. Morgenthau inquired where Churchill lay,
and Edenhesitatinglyadmitted that Churchill was
probably in that third group. Winant agreed:
Churchill now had 'certain reservations' against
the Soviet Union, but he could still be persuaded
that it was desirable to continue the grisly Three
Power agreement reached at Teheran on the future of
Germany. Anyway, Winant was confident that
Churchill would go along with Roosevelt in any
program. Morgenthau expressed to Eden his personal
concern that there were Allied officials aiming to
restore Germany's economy as quickly as possible.
Eden expressed surprise as it ran counter to the
Teheran agreements. Stalin, he claimed, was
determined to smash Germanyto dismember herso that
she could never again disrupt Europe.

* U.S. Dept of State record of visit by
Dr Nahum Goldmann, September 13, 1944: US
embassy files, London, 710 Arab-Jewish
relations.)

'Eden,' noted Harry Dexter White, 'said
Roosevelt had agreed with Stalin, but Churchill was
at first reluctant to accede. He (Churchill) was
willing to make Austria independent and to take
East Prussia away, but was doubtful about going
beyond that.' Eden added that after talking it over
with him Churchill decided to go along with
Roosevelt and Stalin on this. Eden felt it
important to pursue a tough policy on Germany, 'as
nearly in accord with Russian policy toward Germany
as possible,' if only to reassure Stalin of
Britain's good intentions. It was an interesting
statement, and Morgenthau asked him to repeat it.
Eden obliged. 'He [Morgenthau] said [to
Eden] that in his conversation with Churchill
the question of the program to be followed upon
occupation of Germany had come up and that he had
gathered from the Prime Minister's comments that he
was in agreement with the view expressed by
Morgenthau, to the effect that during the early
months Germany's economy ought to be let pretty
much alone and permitted to seek its own
level.'

This was the origin of what Morgenthau later
called leaving the Germans to 'stew in their own
juice.'

Morgenthau now talked with Anderson alone. Until
now the Chancellor had lifted the veil on Britain's
bankrupt future only slightly in Parliament, he
admitted, in opening the talks with the U.S.
Treasury officials on August 11: so his coming
budget message about Britain's bleak post-war
future was going to shock Parliament and people.
'Financially,' summarized one Treasury official,
'England has thrown everything into the war effort
regardless of consequences. It is well known
throughout the country that England has gone into
the war on the basis of "unlimited liability"; the
consequences of such financial action, however,
have not been weighed nor understood by the
country. He stated that England would emerge from
the war with high international and national
prestige, but in a deplorable financial position.
The period of the war would have seen England's
transition from a position of the world's largest
creditor nation to the world's largest debtor
nation.'

When Morgenthau visited him on August 15 Eden
read out to him selected extracts of the Teheran
conference between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt.
namely those extracts dealing with Germany.
Roosevelt said that he wanted to discuss the
partition of GermanyGermany could be divided into
three or fifteen parts, he said. Roosevelt
suggested they instruct the European Advisory
Commission to report on the problem. Stalin agreed,
and since they both evidently felt strongly on it,
Churchill agreed.

However, as Ambassador John G Winant explained,
the European Advisory Commission (EAC) had not
taken up the question of partition, because the
Russian representative had always stalled.
Morgenthau pointed out that the Teheran directive
to the EAC was evidently not known to the State
Department. 'Eden said,' according to Harry Dexter
White's memo, 'there are some groups in both the
United States and in England who feared that
Communism would grow in Germany if a tough policy
were pursued by the Allies. This group believed
that it was important to have a strong Germany as
protection against possible aggression by Russia.
He said it was a question whether there was a
greater danger from a strong Germany or from a
strong Russia. For his part, he believed there was
greater danger from a strong Germany.'

MORGENTHAU RETURNS TO WASHINGTON

Morgenthau had been shocked by the confusion he
found in London as to the treatment of postwar
Germany. He made no secret of this upon his return
to Washington. When he visited Cordell Hull in
Washington on August 18, the Secretary of State had
to admit he had never been told what was in the
minutes of Teheran. On August 19, Roosevelt
confidently assured Morgenthau, 'Give me thirty
minutes with Churchill and I can correct this.' He
added, 'We have got to be tough with Germany and I
mean the German people, not just the Nazis. You
either have to castrate the German people or you
have got to treat them in such a manner so they
can't go on reproducing people who want to continue
the way they have in the past.'

Morgenthau now outlined in response what later
became his infamous Plan'In his opinion serious
consideration should be given to the desirability
and feasability of reducing Germany to an agrarian
economy wherein Germany would be a land of small
farms, without large-scale industrial enterprises.'
. Morgenthau complained, 'Well, Mr President,
nobody is considering the question along those
lines in Europe. In England they want to build up
Germany so that she can pay reparations.'

On August 21, the Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson dictated in his own diary (now in Yale
University archives) a note that he had talked with
Roosevelt's special adviser Harry L. Hopkins on the
telephone: 'He wants me to talk with Morgenthau on
the subject of Germany.' At noon on August 23,
Stimson went to the White House to see the
president: 'It is the first time I have seen him
since June. I succeeded in getting through to him
my views of the importance of having a decision on
what we are going to do to Germany. I came back to
the Department and Secretary Morgenthau came to
lunch with me in my room. I had [John]
McCloy in too. Morgenthau told me of how he had
learned in London that the division of Germany had
been agreed upon at Teheran between the three
chiefs. Although the discovery of this thing has
been a most tremendous surprise to all of us, I am
not sure that the three chiefs regard it as a fait
accompli and in this talk with Morgenthau it
developed that the so-called decision was of a more
informal character than I had understood from
McCloy's first report to me of Morgenthau's news a
day or two ago. In the afternoon I settled down and
tried to dictate my ideas in regard to the postwar
settlement with Germany.'

In this document, 'Brief for Conference with the
President on August 25,' Stimson listed 'a number
of urgent matters of American policy' including the
zones of occupation, the partition of Germany, and
in particular the 'policy vs. liquidation of Hitler
and his gang". His wording was very explicit.

'Present instructions seem inadequate beyond
imprison-ment. Our officers must have the
protection of definite instructions if shooting
required. If shooting required it must be
immediate; not postwar.' He also asked the
question, 'How far do U.S. officers go towards
preventing lynching in advance of Law and
Order?'

Meanwhile Morgenthau got at Roosevelt first.
Lunching at the White House on August 23, he
sketched out details of his plan for punishing and
emasculating postwar Germany regardless of the
effect which this running sore would have on the
rest of Europe. He visited Roosevelt again early on
August 25 and handed him a memorandum on the German
problem.

Later that day, Stimson and Morgenthau both
lunched with the president. The Kriegsminister took
up the question of the British and American zones
of Germany and urged Roosevelt to allow the British
to occupy Northern Germany. 'I further urged the
point,' he recorded in his diary, 'that by taking
south-western Germany we were in a more congenial
part of Germany and further away from the dirty
work that the Russians might be doing with the
Prussians in Eastern Germany. I was inclined to
think that I had made an impression on him, but it
was impossible to say. I either then or in my
former meeting pressed on him the importance of not
partitioning Germany other than the allotment of
East Prussia to Russia or Poland, and Alsace
Lorraine to France and a possible allotment to
Silesia to Poland, namely trimming the outer edges
of Germany. Other than those allotments I feared
that a division of Germany and a policy which would
prevent her from being industrialized would starve
her excess population of 30 million people, giving
again my description of how she had grown during
the period between 1870 and 1914 by virtue of her
industralization..'

ROOSEVELT APPOINTS A CABINET COMMITTEE
ON GERMANY

Stimson, worried that Allied troops would
shortly enter Germany without policy directives,
suggested that Roosevelt appoint a Cabinet
committee. The president accepted the point, and
then they went together into Cabinet. Navy
secretary Forrestal wrote a diary on this date.

So did the Secretary of Agriculture Claude
Wickard.

Both were struck by Roosevelt's insistance that
the Germans in future live off soup-kitchens as a
punishment. Henry Stimson's diary is also explicit:
'At the very beginning of Cabinet he brought up
this last point and said that he would appoint
Secretaries Hull, Morgenthau and myself as the
members of that committee..' Later Stimson joined
Morgenthau at the airport. 'I had the opportunity
of a satisfactory talk with him on matters on which
we were inclined to disagree, namely the use of
over-punitive measures on Germany principally
economic. I have been trying to guard against
that.'

In a subsequent 'Memorandum of Conversation with
the President,' August 25, Stimson felt that he had
made his point that the penalties should be against
individuals and 'not by destruction of the economic
structure of Germany which might have serious
results in the future.' 'As to partition, the
Secretary [Stimson] argued for a lopping
off of sections rather than a general partition and
thought the President was inclined to agree that
Germany should be left as a self supporting state.
The President showed some interest in radical
treatment of the Gestapo.'

For the last days in August Stimson remained on
his farm, maintaining scrambler telephone contact
with McCloy in Washington. 'In particular,' wrote
Stimson in his diary, 'I was working up and
pressing for the point I had initiated, namely that
we should intern the entire Gestapo and perhaps the
S.S. leaders and then vigorously investigate and
try them as the main instruments of Hitler's system
of terrorism in Europe. By so doing I thought we
would begin at the right end, namely the Hitler
machine, and punish the people who were directly
responsible for that, carrying the line of
investigation and punishment as far as possible. I
found around me, particularly Morgenthau, a very
bitter atmosphere of personal resentment against
the entire German people without regard to
individual guilt and I am very much afraid that it
will result in our taking mass vengeance on the
part of our people in the shape of clumsy economic
action.'

HARRY DEXTER WHITE DRAFTS THE PLAN

Harry Dexter White completed the first draft of
the Plan on September 1. Almost immediately the
British embassy learned what Morgenthau was up
to.

On September 2, Morgenthau retired to his
country home for the Labor Day weekend, an American
public holiday. White sent the completed draft out
to him there. President Roosevelt and his wife
motored over from Hyde Park to take tea with
Morgenthau under the trees of his estate at nearby
Fishkill and Morgenthau showed the draft to
him.

Roosevelt's thinking on Germany was rather
simplistic: no aircraft, uniforms or marching.
Morgenthau had said: 'That's very interesting, Mr
President, but I don't think it goes nearly far
enough.' He wanted the Ruhr dismantled and its
machinery given to the needy neighbors; 'I realize
this would put 18 or 20 million people out of
work,' he conceded airily. But it ought to
guarantee the prosperity of Britain and Belgium for
twenty years. Able bodied Germans could be
transported to Central Africa as slave labor on
'some big TVA project.' TVA was the Tennessee
Valley Authority hydroelectric project which
Roosevelt's new Deal had used to generate
employment. He went off at a tangent: he was
thinking of re-education of the Germans. 'You will
have to create entirely new textbooks,' he
said.

That Monday, September 4, Stimson flew back to
Washington and had a conference with General
Marshall that afternoon: 'Discussed with him my
troubles in regard to the treatment of Germany and
the method in which we should investigate and
punish the Gestapo.. It was very interesting to
find that army officers have a better respect for
the law in those matters than civilians who talk
about them and are anxious to go ahead and chop
everybody's head off without trial of hearing.'

Invited to dine with Morgenthau that evening,
Stimson found there McCloy and Harry White of the
Treasury. 'We were all aware of the feeling that a
sharp issue is sure to arise over the question of
the treatment of Germany. Morgenthau is, not
unnaturally, very bitter, and as he is not
thoroughly trained in history or even economics it
became very apparent that he would plunge out for a
treatment of Germany which I feel sure would be
unwise. But we talked the matter over with
temperateness and goodwill during the evening and
that was as much as could be hoped from the
situation. We did succeed in settling with perfect
agreement the question of the currency which should
be issued in Germany namely that we should issue
Allied military marks at a 10 cent value of the
mark. Morgenthau had first struck for only 5 cents,
wishing to use a low rate of the mark to punish
Germany.'

The Cabinet Committee on Germany met for the
first time on September 5 in Hull's office. Hull
was cautious. 'We must not lay plans for partition
of Germany,' he pointed out, 'until British and
Russian views are known.' Stimson found himself in
a minority. 'This proposal,' he said of
Morgenthau's plan, 'will cause enormous evils. The
Germans will be permanent paupers, and the hatreds
and tensions that will develop will obscure the
guilt of the Nazis, and poison the springs of
future peace.' 'My plan,' retorted Morgenthau,
unabashed, 'will stop the Germans from every trying
to extend their domination by force again. Don't
worry. The rest of Europe can survive without
them!'

Stimson was unconvinced. 'This plan will breed
war, not prevent it!'

'It's very singular,' he wrote to Marshall. 'I'm
the man in charge of the Department which does the
killing in this way, and yet I am the only one who
seems to have any mercy for the other side.' Hull's
ideas were no less extreme than Morgenthau's.

Stimson returned to his office and dictated this
note for his diary:

'As soon as I got into the meeting it
became very evident that Morgenthau had been
rooting around behind the scenes and had greased
the way for his own views by conference with the
president and others. We did get through the
question of the currency alright on the lines
which we had decided upon last evening. Then
Hull brought up a draft of agenda.. and as soon
as we got into a discussion of these, I, to my
tremendous surprise, found that Hull was as
bitter as Morgenthau against the Germans and was
ready to jump all the principles that he had
been laboring for in regard to trade for the
past twelve years. He and Morgenthau wished to
wreck completely the immense Ruhr-Saar area of
Germany into a second rate agricultural land
regardless of all that that area meant.. Hopkins
went with them so far as to wish to prevent the
manufacture of steel.. which would pretty well
sabotage everything else. I found myself a
minority of one and I labored vigorously but
entirely ineffectively against my colleagues. In
all the four years that I have been here I have
not had such a difficult and unpleasant meeting
although of course there were no personalities.
We all knew eachother too well for that. But we
were irreconcilably divided. At the end it was
decided that Hull would send in his memorandum
to the President while we should each of us send
a memorandum of views in respect to it.'

Hull had submitted a paper with the title,
'Suggested Recommendations on Treatment of Germany
from the Cabinet Committee for the President.' In
his reply dated September 5, Stimson utterly
rejected it. 'I cannot treat as realistic the
suggestion that such an area in the present
economic condition of the world can be turned into
a non-productive 'ghost territory' when it has
become the center of one of the most industrialized
continents in the world, populated by peoples of
energy, vigor and progressiveness.' As for
destroying the coalmines, etc, he added: 'I cannot
conceive of turning such a gift of nature into a
dustheap.'

LISTS OF MEN TO LIQUIDATE

The British ambassador Lord Halifax notified the
Foreign Office on September 6, 1944, about all
this, and asked the poignant question: 'Whom do we
shoot or hang? The feeling is that we should not
have great state trials, but proceed quickly and
with despatch. The English idea, once preferred but
then withdrawn, was to give the Army lists to
liquidate on mere identification. What has happened
to this idea? Besides individuals, what categories
should be shot?'.

On the same day, September 6, Roosevelt called
the Committee to a sudden conference at the White
House.

Stimson wrote,

'After what had happened yester- day
I.. expected to be steam-rollered by the whole
bunch. But the meeting went off better than I
had expected. The President.. then took up the
question of German economy, looking at me and
reverting to his proposition made at Cabinet a
week or two ago that Germany could live happily
and peacefully on soup from soup kitchens if she
couldn't make money for herself. He said that
our ancestors had lived successfully and happily
in the absence of many luxuries that we would
now deem necessities.. As he addressed his
remarks to me, I took the chance and tried to
drive in the fact that the one point that had
been at issue in our yesterday's preparatory
meeting of the Committee had been the
proposition that the Ruhr and the Saar a plot of
non-industrial agricultural land.. I said I was
utterly opposed to the destruction of such a
great gift of nature and that it should be used
for the reconsturction of the world which sorely
needed it now.. Morgenthau had submitted through
Hull a memorandum giving his program towards
Germany and it had reiterated what he had put
forth verbally, namely a complete obliteration
of the industrial powers of the Ruhr.. I pointed
this out and said that this was what I was
opposed to. The President apparently took my
side on this but he mentioned the fact that
Great Britain was going to be in sore straits
after the war and he thought that the products
of the Ruhr might be used to furnish raw
material for British steel industry. I said that
I had no objection certainly to assisting
Britain every way that we could, but that this
was very different from obliterating the Ruhr as
had been proposed.. I wound up by using the
analogy of Charles Lamb's dissertation on roast
pig. I begged the President to remember that
this was a most complicated economic question
and all that I was urging upon him was that he
should not burn down his house of the world for
the purpose of getting a meal of roast pig. He
apparently caught the point.'

On September 7, Stimson showed to General
Marshall the memorandum he had written about
Germany. '[Marshall] thoroughly approved
the position I have taken of temperate treatment
economically of the Saar-Ruhr area as being the
only possible thing for us to do. I also showed
them the memorandum which I received from
Morgenthau demanding that the leaders of the Nazi
party be shot without trial and on the basis of the
general world appreciation of their guilt, and it
met with the reception that I expectedabsolute
rejection of the notion that we should not give
these men a fair trial.. But at 11:45 I heard from
McCloy that Morgenthau still sticks to his guns and
has been to the president again and has demanded a
re-hearing.'

Stimson began looking for allies too. 'Dinner
with Mabel [Stimson] and [Felix]
Frankfurter. Frankfurter was helpful as I knew he
would be. Although a Jew like Morgenthau, he
approached this subject with perfect detachment and
great helpfulness. I went over the whole matter
with him from the beginning with him, reading him
Morgenthau's views on the subject of the Ruhr and
also on the subject of the trial of the Nazis, at
both of which he snorted with astonishment and
disdain. He fully backed up my views and those of
my fellows in the Army,.. these men the substance
of a fair trial and that they cannot be railroaded
to their death without trial.'

Now, by September 9, the full Morgenthau Plan
was ready. At a meeting that day with FDR, Henry
Stimson laid into it. 'Instead of having a two hour
conference with the President,' wrote Stimson, 'as
Secretary Morgenthau had asked for, our conference
boiled down to about forty-five minutes and that
was taken up mainly by the President's own
discursive questions and remarks.. Morgenthau
appeared with a new diatribe on the subject of the
Nazis and an enlargement of his previous papers as
to how to deal with them. Hull took no leading part
as chairman but sat silent with very little to say.
The President addressed most of his remarks to me
and about the only things that I can remember were
(1) that he asserted his predilection for feeding
the Germans from soup kitchens instead of anything
heavier, and (2) he wanted to be protected from the
expected revolution in France. Those are the two
obsessions that he has had on his mind on this
whole subject as far as I could see.'

Morgenthau's record shows that Roosevelt said he
wanted Germany partitioned into three parts. He
flipped through the pages of Morgenthau's
memorandum, and kept prodding Morgenthau: 'Where is
the ban on uniforms and marching?' Morgenthau
reassured him it was all there.

At one point FDR exclaimed, 'Furthermore I
believe in an agricultural Germany,' he said. This
conference behind him, Roosevelt, as Stimson later
put it, 'pranced up to the meeting at Quebec,'
leaving Hull and Stimson behind. On September 12 he
cabled to Morgenthau, 'Please be in Quebec by
Thursday September 14th noon.' In a looseleaf
folder Morgenthau took his Plan up to Quebec with
him.

'BIASSED BY SEMITIC GRIEVANCES'

Stimson was astonished to hear that Roosevelt
had asked Morgenthau up to Quebec. 'While he has
the papers we have written on the subject with
him,' Stimson recorded on September 13, 'he has not
invited any further discussion on the matter with
us. Instead apparently today he has invited
Morgenthau up, or Morgenthau has got himself
invited. I cannot believe that he will follow
Morgenthau's views. If he does, it will certainly
be a disaster.' And on September 14, the
Kriegsminister wrote, 'It is an outrageous thing.
Here the President appoints a Committee with Hull
as its Chairman for the purpose of advising him in
regard to these questions in order that it may be
done with full deliberation and, when he goes off
to Quebec, he takes the man who really represents
the minority and is so biassed by his Semitic
grievances that he is really a very dangerous
adviser to the President at this time. Hull.. is
left behind.'

THE CONFERENCE AT QUEBEC, SEPTEMBER 1944

At Quebec both Churchill and Roosevelt were ill
men. Churchill was kept going only with M&B
sulphona- mide-type drugs. Roosevelt's great brain
had already deteriorated so far that at one banquet
in August he had proposed a toast to the same the
Icelandic prime minister twice in twenty
minutes.

Both were putty in the hands of evil men.
Roosevelt camouflaged his withering brain with
carefree bonhomie. On September 13, he would turn
to his loathsome dog Falla and command, pointing at
Morgenthau, 'say hello to your Uncle Henry.'

The two leaders reached Quebec early on
September 11. In fact Roosevelt's train had pulled
into the railroad station fifteen minutes before
Churchill's train (10:15 AM), by design rather than
accident, as he confessed to the Canadian prime
minister with a candour that left Mackenzie King
gasping in his diary, 'It seemed to me that the
President was rather assuming that he was in his
own country.' Roosevelt was much thinner in his
body and face, had lost around thirty pounds in
weight, his eyes were drawn, his haggard face had
sunless pallor, and to his shocked host Mackenzie
King he looked distinctly older and worn. The
electioneering abuse on him as 'a senile old man'
had etched deeply into him.* Churchill told
Mackenzie King that it was wonderful what Canada
was doing in the war, and he particularly praised
the latest financial aid given by Canada to
Britain, and that he recognized that Canada had had
to cover up in a way in order to give what she had.
(Mackenzie Kiary, Sept 11, 1944).

As he told Mackenzie King at the end of his
stay, Britain would never forget how Canada had
helped: 'Really,' he said, 'we are the one debtor
nation that will come out of the war.' Now Britain
had to expand her export trade and build up her
industries. 'I understand that it has to be kept
secret for the present,' Churchill said, referring
to Canada's financial aid to Britain. They lunched
in the Citadel and talked about the war's
personalities, about de Gaulle and Chiang-Kai-shek;
Churchill flattered F.D.R. that he was head of the
strongest military power on earth, both in the air,
at sea and on the land.

Churchill looked better, and was getting to
grips with some Scotch as well as a couple of
brandies. It was hard for even the Canadian hosts
to find out about Churchill's and Roosevelt's
intentions. Mackenzie King himself was tired and
his eyes and body were aching with old age. After
luncheon, Mrs Roosevelt wheeled the president over
in his wheelchair to see the models Churchill had
brought from England of the D-day invasion
equipmenta gift for the Hyde Park library. As
Roosevelt leaned forward to see them there were
beads of perspiration on his forehead. Then he was
wheeled away for an afternoon rest. Sir John Dill
took Mackenzie King aside and told him he believed
that Churchill 'enjoyed' this war. 'It is clear,'
agreed Mackenzie King, 'that it is the very breath
of life to him.'

On the following day, September 13, it began
raining around noon. Morgenthau arrived at Quebec.
The problem looming over the conference was of
financing the war effort. Canada was now being
asked to commit her forces for the South Pacific,
but Mackenzie King saw immense political
difficulties in further Imperial wars Canadians
would never agree that their taxes should be spent
fighting to protect India or recover Burma and
Singapore. Roosevelt sneered to Morgenthau that he
'knew now' why the British wanted to join in the
war in the Pacific. 'All they want is Singapore
back.'

* Diaries of Mackenzie King, H.H. Arnold;
Leahy, etc.

That evening, September 13, FDR and Churchill
stayed at the dinner table at the Citadel. At 8 pm
on September 13, Churchill dined with FDR,
Morgenthau, Cherwell, and other members of their
staff. Mackenzie King left at 9 pm and he found
them still sitting there, talking at 11:30 pm.
'Churchill was immediately opposite the President,'
Mackenzie King described in his diary, 'and both of
them seemed to be speaking to the numbers assembled
which included Morgenthau, Lord Cherwell, Lord
Leathers, Lord Moran and two or three others.
Morgenthau arrived this afternoon. Anthony Eden is
to arrive in the morning.'

Morgenthau's papers show that they talked about
Germany. Churchill irritably said, 'What are my
Cabinet members doing discussing plans for Germany
without first discussing them with me?' FDR
explained that this was why Morgenthau had come up
from Washington. Tomorrow Morgenthau would talk
privately with Cherwell about it. Churchill
challenged FDR: 'Why don't we discuss Germany now?'
so Roosevelt asked Morgenthau to outline his plan.
Remarkably, Churchill's first reaction was hostile.
When the Treasury Secretary embarked on the details
of dismantling the Ruhr, Churchill was shocked and
interrupted him. He was flatly opposedall that was
necessary was to eliminate German arms production.
Doing what Morgenthau proposed, Churchill waspishly
told Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary, who was a Jew,
would 'unnatural, un-Christian and unnecessary.' He
doubted it would help even if all Germany's former
steel markets went to Britain. 'I regard the
Morgenthau Plan,' he said with heavy sarcasm, 'with
as much enthusiasm as I would handcuffing myself to
a dead German.' He was truculent, even offensive,
rasping at one point to Roosevelt in particular,
'Is this what you asked me to come all the way over
here to discuss?' And at another, to the American
representatives in general: 'If you do not do
something for Britain then the British simply will
have to destroy gold and do business largely within
the Empire.' The Prof glowered at his prime
minister, but Admiral Leahy, the president's chief
of staff, sided with Churchill. F.D.R. kept quiet.
That was his way. He had done his footwork behind
the scenes. Once, the conversation switched to
India and stayed there for an hour. Churchill was
angry at FDR's refusal to understand the
administration problems faced by the British in a
subcontinent where the birth and death rates were
high, and the people were careless of poverty and
ignorant of disease. 'I'll give the United States
half of India to admi- nister,' Churchill flung at
F.D.R., 'and we will take the other half. And then
we'll see who does better.'

Surprised at Churchill's hostility to the Plan,
Lord Cherwell suspected that WSC had not wholly
grasped what Morgenthau was driving at. In a
private tête-à-tête the next
morning (September 14) he apologized profusely for
Winston's behaviour over dinner, promised
Morgenthau that he would try to dress up the Plan
in a way more attractive to the Prime Minister.

Churchill got the message, wrote later: 'We had
much to ask from Mr Morgenthau.' When FDR and
Churchill discussed policy toward Germany later
that day Churchill now declared himself in favour
of the Plan, as outlined to him by Lord Cherwell.
Cherwell was instructed to draft a memorandum for
signature and give it to Churchill.

At one point Mackenzie King asked how long the
war was going to last. Churchill said he feared
that it might drag on -- the Germans might hold out
in the Alps or elsewhere. 'Hitler and his crowd
know that their lives are at stake,' he said, 'so
they will fight to the bitter end. This may mean
that at some time we have to take the position that
the war is really won, and that what is still going
on anew is just mopping up groups here and there.'
On the question of what to do with Germany,
Churchill said that there would not be any attempt
to control the country immediately by Allied
forces. The Germans would have to police their own
people. 'They are a race that loves that sort of
thing,' he said. 'To be given any little authority,
once they are beaten, and to wield it over others.'
He envisaged something like centralized stations
(FLAKTURME?) on towers around the different cities.
If there was any difficulty from the Germans they
could be threatened with a local bombardment. If
the difficulty kept up they could be given a very
effective bombardment from the skies. 'He did not
contemplate continued active fighting,' recorded
Mackenzie King after this discussion.

Churchill took a nap at the Citadel, dreaming
deeply, and arrived late for dinner. 'I have been
thousands of miles away,' he apologized. He sat
opposite Roosevelt and Morgenthau. A few hours
earlier Anthony Eden, summoned by Churchill from
London, had arrived at Quebec. He sat to
Roosevelt's left, worn out by the eighteen-hour
flight in a Liberator bomber. Churchill was in good
spirit, the Canadian premier was pleased to see how
well he was looking, and surmised it was because of
the scarcity of alcohol.

Out of earshot of Churchill and Eden, at 11:00
a.m. on September 15, Morgenthau invited Lord
Cherwell and Harry Dexter White to his room, read
the Prof's draft and disliked it. It represented
'two steps backwards,' he said. Since the last
discussion, he said, Churchill had seemed to accept
the Plan, and had himself spoken promisingly of
turning Germany into an agricultural state as she
had been in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Morgenthau urged them to scrap this draft, and
return to the two leaders for fresh
instructions.

When Churchill met Roosevelt, in the presence of
Henry Morgenthau and Harry Dexter White, an hour
later at noon September 15, Britain's financial
problems were clearly uppermost in his own mind,
rather than the future of Germany. Roosevelt read
through the draft Lend-Lease Agreement for Phase
II, and approved it with a minor change.

But each time he seemed about to sign it, he
kept interrupting with a fresh anecdote -- he was
in one of his talky moods, as Morgenthau described
them. Churchill was unable to contain himself.
'What do you want me to do,' he exclaimed
nervously. 'Get on my hind legs and beg like
Falla?'.

FDR enjoyed every moment of Churchill's --
Britain's -- humiliating plight. But eventually he
signed: OK, FDR. Churchill added: WC, 15.9. (A copy
of the document is also in the Forrestal papers;
and cf Leahy diary, October 19, 1944.)

It was a load off Churchill's mind. He became
quite emotional and Morgenthau saw tears in the old
man's eyes. After the signing he thanked Roosevelt
effusively, and said that it was something they
were doing for both countries.

CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT INITIAL THE
MORGENTHAU PLAN

Still at this noon conference on September 15,
1944, and feeling in generous mood, Churchill
turned to Lord Cherwell. 'Where are the minutes on
this matter of the Ruhr?' he asked the Prof. The
Prof and Morgenthau had agreed to say they did not
have them -- because the American, on reading
Cherwell's draft, had felt the text was too
milk-and-water. ('I thought we could get Churchill
to go much further,' he noted afterwards.)

Churchill was annoyed at this lapse. Roosevelt
humorously observed that the document was not ready
because Morgenthau had 'interspersed the previous
discussion with too many dirty stories.'

'Well,' Churchill interrupted impatiently, 'I'll
restate it.' He did so forcefully. Then he invited
the Prof and Morgenthau to leave the room and
dictate the memorandum anew.

When the two men walked back in, the new draft
still did not suit Churchill's new temperament.
'No,' he said, 'that won't do at all.' Morgenthau's
heart sank, but then he heard Churchill add, 'It's
not drastic enough. Let me show you what I want.'
He asked for his stenographer, then himself
dictatedrather well, as Morgenthau thought.

'At a conference between the President and the
Prime Minister upon the best measures to prevent
renewed rearmament by Germany, it was felt that an
essential feature was the future disposition of the
Ruhr and the Saar.'

Among those listening was Eden. Eden was going
white about the gills. He was hearing this for the
first time.

'The ease,' continued Churchill, 'with which the
metallurgical, chemical and electric
industries..'

'In Germany,' interposed Roosevelt, because he
had in mind the whole of Germany, and not just the
Ruhr and Saar industries.

'The ease with which the metallurgical, chemical
and electric industries in Germany can be converted
from peace to war has already been impressed upon
us by bitter experience. It must also be remembered
that the Germans have devastated a large portion of
the industries of Russia and of other neighbouring
Allies, and it is only in accordance with justice
that these injured countries should be entitled to
remove the machinery they require in order to
repair the losses they have suffered. The
industries referred to in the Ruhr and in the Saar
would therefore be necessarily put out of action
and closed down. It was felt that the two districts
should be put under somebody under the World
Organization which would supervise the dismantling
of these industries and make sure that they were
not started up again by some subterfuge.

'This programme for eliminating the war-making
industries in the Ruhr and in the Saar is looking
forward to converting Germany into a country
primarily agricultural and pastoral in its
character.

'The Prime Minister and the President were in
agreement upon this programme.'

Eden was horrified. He exclaimed to Churchill,
'You can't do this. After all, you and I publicly
have said quite the opposite.'

A row broke out between the two men. It got
quite nasty. But Churchill kept arguing that this
was the only way to steal Germany's export market.
'How do you know what it is or where it is,'
snapped Eden, and Churchill testily retorted:
'Well, we will get it wherever it is.' He took a
pen and initialled the document. Roosevelt had
already done the same. 'O.K. FDR' and 'WC,
15.9.'

'SEMITISM GONE WILD'

Copies went to London immediately for the War
Cabinet. There is no doubt about it. Typed on long
green telegram sheets, it is to be found among
Eden's private papers at Birmingham University, and
Lord Cherwell's papers at Oxford university.

Copies were circulated to the ministries in
Washington as well.* On September 15 Roosevelt sent
it to Hull, prefaced by the explanation: 'After
many long conversations with the Prime Minister and
Lord Cherwell, the

general matter of post-war plans regarding
industries has been worked out as per the following
memoranda. This seems eminently satisfactory and I
think you will approve the general idea of not
rehabilitating the Ruhr, Saar, etc.'

Knowing that Eden would return to London before
him, Churchill turned to his foreign secretary:
'Now I hope, Anthony,' he said, you're not going to
do anything about this with the War Cabinet if you
see a chance to present it. After all, the future
of my people is at stake and when I have to choose
between my people and the German people, I am going
to choose my people.'

For the rest of the day Eden sulked and brooded.
Morgenthau was delighted, particularly by the
unexpected bonus that Churchill had himself
dictated the infamous memorandum. He could hardly
later disavow it. Afterwards Morgenthau lunched
with Lord Cherwell. That afternoon -- it was still
September 15, 1944 -- Roosevelt looked at the
Combined Chiefs of Staff map of postwar Germany and
found it 'terrible,' as he told Morgenthau. He took
three colored pencils and sketched where he wanted
the British and American armies to go in Germany.
He waited until the PM was in a good humor and
everything else settled, then showed the map to
him. Churchill approved it.

Admiral Leahy was also pleased with it,
explaining to Morgenthau that since the British
were going to occupy the Ruhr and the Saar, they
would have the odium of carrying the Morgenthau
plan out. Henry Stimson, isolated on his estate by
a hurricane that weekend, now learned of
Morgenthau's triumph at Quebec. He wrote in his
diary, 'On Saturday or Sunday [September
16-17] I learned from McCloy over the long
distance telephone that the President has sent a
decision flatly against us in regard to the
treatment of Germany. Apparently he has gone over
completely to the Morgenthau proposition and has
gotten Churchill and Lord Cherwell with them. But
the situation is a serious one and the cloud of it
has hung over me pretty heavily over the weekend.
It is a terrible thing to think that the total
power of the United States and the United Kingdom
in such a critical matter as this is in the hands
of two men, both of whom are similar in their
impulsiveness and their lack of systematic study.I
have yet to meet a man who is not horrified with
the "Carthaginian" attitude of the Treasury. It is
Semitism gone wild for vengeance and, if it is
ultimately carried out (I can't believe that it
will be) it as sure as fate will lay the seeds for
another war in the next generation. And yet these
two men in a brief conference at Quebec with nobody
to advise them except "yes-men," with no Cabinet
officer with the President except Morgenthau, have
taken this step and given directions for it to be
carried out.'

At noon on the sixteenth, calling at the Citadel
for a final joint meeting with Roosevelt and
Churchill, airforce commander General Arnold
thought that the President looked 'very badly.' 'He
did not have the pep, power of concentration, could
not make his usual wisecracks, seemed to be
thinking of something else. Closed his eyes to rest
more than usual.' (Arnold diary).

Roosevelt left that evening for his Hyde Park
estate, joined there by Churchill early on the
eighteenth. On September 18, Churchill and
Roosevelt signed their secret agreement on the
atomic bomb: 'It might perhaps, after mature
consideration, be used against the Japanese;' and
there was to be 'full collaboration between the
United States and the British Government' in its
postwar development and commerical exploitation.
(Since neither Churchill's nor Roosevelt's
successors knew of this secret agreement, it would
remain unhonoured.)

After dinner on September 19 Churchill left for
Staten Island by train and boarded the Queen Mary
off New York the next morning for the return
journey to England. Lord Cherwell, his eminence
grise, remained in Washington. Roosevelt was still
under Morgenthau's influence. On September 20, John
McCloy told Stimson, who wrote it in his diary,
that he had heard from Halifax and Sir Alec Cadogan
that the president was 'very firm for shooting the
Nazi leaders without trial.' After Quebec, the
Washington campaign against the Morgenthau Plan
stepped up. McCloy showed it to Forrestal, the Navy
Secretary.

Both Stimson and Hull carried protests to the
President against it. On September 20, Morgenthau
proudly related to Secretaries Stimson and Hull how
he had obtained the initials of Roosevelt and
Churchill on his Declaration. Stimson and Hull both
gained the impression that the president had not
read what he had so easily initialled. On September
22 there was a discussion between Roosevelt, Bush,
Leahy and Lord Cherwell. The last-named wrote a
handwritten note. After discussion of the atomic
bomb project ("Tube Alloys") the conversation
passed to more general topics.

'P[resident] said that the
British Empire, in its struggle against fascism,
had got into terrible economic trouble. It was a
U.S. interest to help Britain over that trouble
and see that she became once more completely
solvent and able to pay her way. In fact to put
it bluntly the U.S. could not afford to see the
British Empire go bankrupt. For this reason it
was essential to increase Great Britain's
exports. It had been decided at
Q[uebec]though he did not know when this
would be announced or whether it would simply be
allowed to leak out later that in the interests
of world security German war-making potential in
the Ruhr and the Saar would be extinguished and
those regions put under international control.
In fact Germany should revert definitely to a
more agricultural habit. This would leave a gap
in the export markets which the U.K. might well
fill to general advantage. It might be that some
high minded people would disapprove, but he
found it hard to be high minded vis-à-vis
the Germans when he thought of all they had
done.'

Almost overnight, Roosevelt changed his mind.
What changed it for him, was probably the leakage
of the Morgenthau Plan to the newspapers, published
in great detail on September 23 by the Wall Street
Journal. Roosevelt covered his tracks as best he
could. Pulling out all the stops, Morgenthau sent a
copy of the full-length Plan round to Lord Cherwell
at his Washington hotel on September 26, asking him
to show it to Churchill.

But the opposition was stiffening. To Stimson's
surprise, on the 27th Roosevelt himself telephoned
on the scrambler telephone. 'He.. was evidently
under the influence of the impact of criticism
which has followed his decision to follow
Morgenthau's advice. The papers have taken it up
violently and almost unanimously against Morgenthau
and the President himself, and the impact has been
such that he had already reached a conclusion that
he had made a false step and was trying to work out
of it. He told me that he didn't really intend to
try to make Germany a purely agricultural country
but said that his underlying motive was the very
confidential one that England was broke; that
something must be done to give her more business to
pull out after the war, and he evidently hoped that
by something like the Morgenthau Plan Britain might
inherit Germany's Ruhr business.'

The five biggest American engineering unions
issued a declaration on September 29 dismissing the
Plan as economically unsound and warning that it
'contained the seeds of a new war.' Politically,
the Morgenthau Plan was a disaster. Roosevelt was
coming up to a new presidential election in a few
weeks' time. On October 3, lunching with Stimson,
he remarked: 'You know, Morgenthau pulled a boner.
Don't let's be apart on that. I have no intention
of turning Germany into an agrarian state.' Stimson
thereupon produced a copy of the Declaration and
read the appropriate lines from it. Roosevelt
listened in horror. He had no idea how he could
have agreed to such proposals. At a meeting the
same day with Lord Cherwell, Harry Hopkins said to
the Prof: 'Be careful with Cordell Hull. He is very
annoyed at Henry Morgenthau's intervention in the
plans for the treatment of Germany. He has no doubt
at all that you supported Morgenthau because you
were anxious to get the Lend-Lease negotiations
through.'

In London, Eden angrily rebuked Churchill for
having initialled the agreement. On September 29 a
Labour Member of Parliament, Richard Stokes,
challenged Eden to tell the truth about the
Morgenthau Plan.

Lord Keynes, British economist, in Washington on
Churchill's orders to ask for $6,757m to be
allocated to Lend-Lease for Britain in 1945, wrote
to London with the inside story of the leak to the
newspapers. He thought the Plan might still be
implemented. But Roosevelt had already turned his
back on the document. Writing to the State
Department on October 20, he made clear that he
approved the Department's economic plans.
Morgenthau continued to campaign for his Plan's
acceptance. On October 20th., he lunched with
Marineminister James Forrestal and revealed the
plan to him.

THE U.S. POLICY DIRECTIVE ISSUED

Regardless of the Quebec document initialling
the Morgenthau Plan, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff
had issued to General Eisenhower a wide interim
directive on policy towards Germany, on September
17, 1944. The Supreme Commander was to ensure that
the Germans realized they would never again be
allowed to threaten world peace. 'Your occupation
and administration,' the document read, 'will be
just but firm and distant. You will strongly
discourage fraternization between Allied troops and
the German officials and population.' But then more
directives were issued as appendices. A Political
Directive issued on October 14 stressed the
elimination of the German officer corps. 'General
Staff officers not taken into custody as prisoners
are to be arrested and held, pending receipt of
further instructions as to their disposal.'

That sounded ominous. The appended Economic
Directive circulated in October 1944 was very
similar to Morgenthau's plan. 'You shall assume
such control of existing German industrial,
agricultural, utility, communication and
transportation facilities, supplies and services as
are necessary for the following purposes..' and
then continued, 'except for the purposes specified
above, you will take no steps looking toward the
economic rehabilitation of Germany or designed to
maintain or strengthen the German economy except to
the extent necessary to accomplish the purposes set
out above, the responsibility for such economic
problems as price controls, rationing,
unemployment, production, reconstruction,
distribution, consumption, housing or
transportation, will remain with the German people
and the German authorities.'

The proposed Relief Directive was even more
stark: 'You will invite the German authorities to
maintain or re-establish such health services and
facilities as may be available to them under the
circumstances. In the event that disease and
epidemics should threaten the safety of allied
troops or endanger or impede military occupation,
you shall take such steps as you deem necessary to
protect the health of Allied troops and to
eradicate the source of the problem.'

As the barrage began against him and his Plan,
Morgenthau was bitterly critical of the British
policy draft, and sent to England a 'Memorandum on
the British Draft of Policy Directive on Germany,'
dated November 1, 1944. He asked his crony Lord
Cherwell to send it to Churchill, who did so,
complaining that the British War Office had
evidently prepared their very elaborate draft
without any guiding principle, whereas the American
draft appeared to have been prepared since, and in
the light of, the discussions at Quebec. 'Broadly
speaking our draft tells the troops to encourage
and help the Germans to restore their industry
unless this interferes with the war. The U.S. draft
says that they should only be helped to restore the
industry if this assists us in prosecuting the
war.' Cherwell sent this summary to Churchill on
November 5.

Churchill approved, sent a minute to Anthony
Eden on November 6: 'I do not remember ever having
seen the War Office draft and certainly Mr
Morgenthau's criticisms of it seem very cogent.
This matter requires immediate reconsideration
first by you and then by the War Cabinet. WSC
6.11.1944.' Across one corner of Churchill's
letter.

Anthony Eden wrote to his permanent secretary,
Sir Alexander Cadogan, on November 7, 1944: 'I
don't think I ever read any draft. At the same time
I cannot see that this is any business of Mr
Morgenthau's, still less Lord Cherwell's &
should like to say so. Would you please go into the
matter for me? A.E. Nov 7.'

A BATH OF HATE

Rejoicing at the chance, Eden's staff drafted a
lengthy, rough-tongued reply to go jointly from the
Foreign Office (Eden) and the War office (Sir James
Grigg) and Mr Churchill. Eden approved the draft,
writing in a handwritten memo: 'I have never read
the documents and I hope that they deserve this
stalwart defence. Anyhow it is well stated &
Morgenthau's interference is a piece of gratuitous
impertinence. These ex-Germans seem to wish to wash
away their ancestry in a bath of hate. A.E. Nov
19.'

The British government retained its logical
approach to the German occupation problem. On
November 20 the War Cabinet circulated the E.I.P.S.
re- draft of the economic and relief directives.
Characteristic of the British attitude was the
paragraph ordering Eisenhower, after closing down
the munitions factories, to 'ensure that the other
utilities are restored to full working order and
that coalmines and are maintained in working
condition and in full operation so far as transport
will permit.'

Mr Roosevelt's metamorphosis was now complete.
When the British Minister of State had lunch with
President Roosevelt on December 22, 1944, Roosevelt
told him he was quite sure 'that it was most unwise
to attempt to come now to any long term decisions
about Germany,' since it would be folly to commit
themselves to plans which might be found to be
inappropriate when they arrived. F.K. Roberts, head
of the F.O.'s Central Europe department, minuted on
his copy, 'This surely marks a considerable retreat
on the part of the President from the Morgenthau
Plan of forcible dismemberment.'

By January 1945 there still seemed little doubt
in SHAEF's mind that entire classes of German
captives were to be shot out of hand. SHAEF's views
as formulated in a report of its Psychological
Warfare Division were hotly discussed in
Washington. There was little doubt why the new plan
proposed to differentiate between the German people
and the members of their government, High Command,
and Nazi Party on the other. Marineminister
Forrestal objected. 'The American people,' he wrote
in his diary on Janury 16, 1945, 'would not support
mass murder of Germans, their enslavement, or the
industrial devastation of the country.'

Churchill continued to argue for liquidation of
the enemy leaders.

At Yalta, Admiral Leahy noted in his diary on
February 9, that 'The Prime Minister.. expressed an
opinion that the 'Great War Criminals' should be
executed without formal individual trials.' Again
Stalin blocked this proposal, and Truman would
later strongly adopt the same position, that a
trial was vital.

'The British,' summarized Stimson in his diary
one weekend (April 27-29) 'have to my utmost
astonishment popped out for what they call
political action which is merely a euphemistic name
for lynchlaw, and they propose to execute these men
without a trial.. Fortunately the Russians and the
French are on our side.'

Morgenthau continued to peddle his plan around
Washington. He visited Roosevelt on the day before
the president died, and again badgered him to adopt
the plan. On the day the war ended, May 8, 1945,
Morgenthau would resume his vicious campaign for
the starvation of central Europe, this time with
Harry S. Truman. He telephoned Henry Stimson,
lunching at home, and complained that the
Coordinating Committee was not carrying out his
'scorched earth' policy as hard as he wanted,
particularly as related to the destruction of all
oil and gasoline and the plants for making them in
Germany, and Directive 1067 that ordained this.
Except for the purpose of facilitating the
occupation, JCS.1067 defined, 'you
[Eisenhower] will take no steps looking
toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany nor
designed to maintain or strengthen the German
economy.'

The U.S. army was protesting this senseless
order. But Morgenthau wanted his evil will
performed. Stimson privately dictated next day, 'I
foresee hideous results from his influence in the
near future.' In a memorandum to Mr. Truman dated
May 16, Stimson outlined the probable consequences
of such pestilence and famine in central
Europe'political revolution and Communistic
infiltration.' And he added a warning against the
emotional plans to punish every German by
starvation: 'The eighty million Germans and
Austrians in central Europe today necessarily swing
the balance of that continent.'